13 Tips for Choosing a Domain Name – 2017 Edition

Your domain name is more than just a URL – it’s truly one of the most important elements of your online business.

Sure you’d like to think that your domain name isn’t as important as your company and marketing, but you’d be mistaken. A convoluted domain name or a subdomain of another site isn’t going to be easy for customers to type in or feel confident with.

When you’re choosing a domain name – especially in 2017 when customers are savvy and skeptical – you need to choose wisely.

Make It Brandable

Make It Brandable

Your URL is just as important as your company name. That means it’s important that you find a URL that you can build a brand around, just like you work hard to brand your company name. This doesn’t mean the URL has to match your existing company name, but it should be in the same field so that it can be incorporated into an existing brand.

Keep It Short

Memories are short, and if you want potential customers to be able to remember, repeat and then type your URL into browsers, it needs to be short. Shorter URLs are more memorable and they have significantly less chance for errors when typed or repeated.

Watch Your Spelling

Words in your new URL should be spelled in the most traditional pattern possible. Creative spelling is cute for a baby’s name, but it can be a huge pain for a business owner and his customers as the try to come up with the right random spelling to pull up your site. It is also important that you avoid words that have multiple conventional spellings. Principle or principal? Your customers certainly won’t know.

Pronunciation Matters

Pronunciation Matters

There are many websites that have creative URLS that are spelled phonetically, but they are pronounceable. Google, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. Be creative with your own URL, but don’t be so creative that nobody knows how to pronounce the word that you’ve created. How can people spread the word if they can’t say the word?

Keywords Can Help

Including keywords in your URL was almost a necessity a few years ago, but it is not as imperative now. If you are able to work a keyword into your URL naturally, it can be beneficial, but it is not required for SEO purposes and it can harm you if your keyword use is too heavy, strange or makes your company seem shady. It’s better to have a professional sounding name than one that is jammed full of forced keywords.

Skip Hyphens and Numbers

Adding a hyphen or using a 2 instead of “two” might seem like a good idea to get closer to the URL you want, but that hyphen or numeral are going to throw off everyone who tries to remember or type in your URL later. Even if you have to do more brainstorming or go in a new direction, a whole word URL is better than a hyphenated one.

Commit for Decades

When you buy a URL and start developing it, plan for the long term. You don’t develop a business for a few months or less. You shouldn’t buy a URL and plan to only use it for a few months or less.

You are going to be investing a great deal of time and money into your project. As your hard work pays off, it will hopefully continue to do so for years. So plan to be invested in your new URL for decades.

Try for the .com

There are more domain extensions available than ever before, but the .com is still the gold standard. Play with URLs to try and reserve the .com rather than the .net or .it or .anythingelsetheycomeupwith. It is possible to be cute and clever with a domain extension, but the majority of people will default to the .com when they write or type, so keep it easy for them. The .com makes you appear more professional as well.

Watch for Trademarks and Confusion

Trademarks

Nobody is going to stop you from registering a URL that sounds and looks suspiciously like the name of another business. It is on you to research and do some due diligence on other companies that may be confused with your own new URL.

Granted, you can register the URL and do the work to set up your new website without interference, but if you have infringed on copyrights, you can expect some legal consequences down the road.

Make Sense

It should go without saying, but it can be said that your new domain name should make sense. Sure, you can use a creative word that nobody has ever heard of before – that’s an internet standard. But if you are going to use traditional words, use them with traditional spellings in a traditional phrase. A jumble of words doesn’t make sense, and customers won’t care for typing in what feels like nonsense.

Test It

Don’t forget to do a bit of split testing with your new domain name. It doesn’t cost much to register multiple domain names, so if you’re concerned about a new one, grab a couple of domain names you like and try them both out for a while. Once you’ve lived with both, you will likely find yourself with a clear preference and your testing groups may have a clear preference as well.

Consider Your Area

Local Business

If you run a local business and you’re looking to attract a local market, including your location in your URL name makes a terrific amount of sense.

Rather than being plumbers.com, you can become Atlantaplumbers.com (although that domain name is probably already taken). Customers generally respond with trust to websites and businesses they know are local rather than an unknown entity that could be from anywhere across the globe.

Move Fast

It doesn’t take long for domain names to be snatched up. If you’re researching and playing with names and you find one you like, don’t let it sit. It might be snatched up by someone in a matter of minutes. This doesn’t give you a lot of thinking time, but it’s better to spend the $10 to keep the name safe than plan to come back to it next week and find the name taken and out of your hands.

Brand Consistently

Your brand is your business, and you should incorporate your new website smoothly into your existing business smoothly. Even if your URL isn’t the same name as your business, the branding for your domain should be consistent with the business the website is representing.

If you design your website correctly with SEO in mind, customers searching for your business name should be able to find your differing URL easily in a search engine anyhow.

Selecting your domain name might very well be the first step of a new business. If your business is already established, the domain name might be a natural extension of what you already do well. Regardless of your personal scenario, choosing the right domain name is absolutely critical.

Glad to see these 2017-style domain name tips, because “things” have indeed changed.

I was one of those people who chose a domain name, didn’t register it straight away, and found someone had registered it AFTER I was planning to do it. Very disappointing. If you like a domain, register it ASAP.

I found a major league brandable domain name in Blogging From Paradise Oleg 😉 I ran with it when I bought it, building an even stronger brand. Even if it is kind of a long domain name 🙂 Look for something people can visualize, something people can feel, and your domain name becomes memorable. Super tips here.

Hi Oleg,
If I knew then what I know now, my domain name would be different. I used my own name, but it is not the best searchable thing! It’s been seven years now, and most people know my blog by it so it is too late to change or is it?
-Donna

Glad that you highlighted the importance of choosing the right domain name of businesses. Since the website is our online business store, putting a name out of the context seems odd. The website is selling digital marketing courses its bad to have a domain name like, onlinestore.com. It confuses people in thinking that its an eCommerce store.

Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Yeah, relevancy matters a lot, people will surely judge the site based on the domain name you choose. It even has an impact on the CTR in both search and PPC – the domain name plays a big role in it.

Nice post Oleg. I always prefer short and sweet domain names with any confusing, repetitive letters, etc. Also, everybody should devote some time on choosing a perfect domain name. Do not hurry. It is not easy to change your website name later. I still remember it took me more than a month before I came up with my website name “Stemjar”.

Thank you for the comment,
Yeah, very true – and coming up with a wrong domain name is one of those beginner mistakes that most people do, and like you said – it isn’t easy to change once your site gets established.

It is the fact that a most relevant domain name makes the website or blog more visible in SERPs, and you have shared great stuff regarding the selection of right domain name. I am new on board and will probably visit again to get more.

Thank you for the comment,
Yeah, having the name in the domain is excellent for personal branding.
I can see that it is working out pretty well for you, we all know you pretty well by your domain and your name!

Your post is really awesome. I visit regularly on your website. Your all article is really nice and easy to understand. Keep it up and share the more amazing post with us. I am waiting for your next post.

Thank you for the comment,
Yeah, that happens to most of us – we do keep changing domain names till we are comfortable with – and that is mostly based on the experience that we gain during our blogging life.

Glad you liked the tips, it is always best to settle down with a domain that you want to run for the rest of your life – and you need to arrive at that decision as soon as possible, because you lose a lot of branding etc. when you leave your old domain behind!

Great information Oleg..! since few days i’ve been searching for domain names and your tips gave me boost to find my brand able domain . Thanks for sharing. and i think this the second time i read your article.good information for blog starters.

Very informative post! Today if you are digital marketer then all it matters is how you are optimizing your website and marketing it. If you are doing it well, you are all set for the fame. There are great examples and I would like to mention about Ryan and Donna’s blogging website.

Thanks Oleg for sharing your thought process.
A good and attractive domain name needs to require some serious brainstorming to determine the best name for it. I was simply stumped on what domain name to buy? Even tried using a Domain Name Generator. I found your article more interesting and useful as a tool which could help me explore my domain name options and help to get the creative juices flowing.

I can remember back in the day when I accidentally bought a domain name that was misspelled. I went forward with it to very little success, but did end up listed on Google in the top spot for that misspelling. This was way before they started giving you the search suggestion if you misspelled your term.

Great guide here for sure. I love that you included trademarks in there, as that can be a big one. I try to tell bloggers to either choose your real name (pen name works too) as your domain or make it something that represents you. Nothing worse than a domain name that isn’t clear or doesn’t show the visitor what you’re all about.

Now that you mention it, a first impression is a good way to describe a domain name. I’ve heard that it’s best to keep it short and simple. That makes sense to me since it’ll probably be easier to remember.

Hi,
I just loved it, when people shared tips and ideas which shows their experience in it.
Thanks for this wonderful post, tips are quite helpful to choosing a domain name.
Have a good day.
Regards
Abid Masih

Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Domains in itself does not makes a difference – it depends on what you are targeting to rank. If your content is targeted to India then a .in will help you for ranking for the local terms!